Fireworks

After seeing the worst episode of the series by far (the previous episode), this series has redeemed itself with giving us this, the best episode of the series. The entire 48 min runtime was all substance, with little to no filler, the entire narrative progressed the theme of the series. Every minute of this episode moves the story forward beautifully. I had lost hope after seeing the last episode, and was ready to give up, but wow, did the writers step up their game with this beauty of an episode. I hope the writers maintain this momentum, as I'm finally excited to see what happens next. A well deserved and my highest rating of all the episodes at a 9/10 for this one.

First off, the lack of more than two seconds of episode 2 included in the recap: "Previously On Invasion..." prior to episode 3 confirms that many of the negative reviews of episode 2 were spot on as nothing happened to even justify inclusion in a summary of the story thus far.

Although episode 3 is a big improvement there were too many coincidences in the plot and story when compared to Independence Day. I noted the following coincidences:

1. Canny humans manage to hack into alien communications/computer systems and bring down their defences, by piggy backing a hack onto a radio signal which is interpreted by their cloaking tech.

2. President of the resistance gives rousing speech prior to event (unworried that the highly advanced aliens might be listening to the plan they broadcast to the entire world.)

3. Post-hacking obligatory round of applause as ...

4. Alien drones/craft drop like flies because it's a hive mind and the queen/mothership has just had the motherload of human computer virus/hacking code magically inserted into their alien tech which is coincidentally binary, two-dimensional and on silicon it seems. The way they arrive at this breakthrough is suspiciously vague in technical explanation.

Someone should send this to tech manufacturers as the ultimate goal for compatibility because currently we can't even use the same charger on different devices, nevermind seamlessly interface with alien tech and know in advance we can hack it. Alien tech, which for all we know could use methane bubbles to store data. Turns out it's also binary, compiles to two dimensional byte-code and is easily overlooked by alien security systems. But hey, the important thing is that it worked. All that was missing was Jeff Goldblum's ineffaceable nonchalance and wet cigar.

Meanwhile, ego-maniacal billionaire talks down to the leaders of world defense as if they're imbeciles when in reality he's a buffoon who says stereotypical Britishisms like "Ta Ta!" This character doesn't add anything but annoyance and is very contrived.

That aside, how anyone in writing and production didn't notice the "coincidences" with Independence Day escapes me as I'd say there were a few film buffs picking their jaw up off the floor after watching what unfolded in episode 3.

So I get that some found it much better but it was by no means great, it's just a relief for many I guess given what went before. The problem remains however that much of episode 3 still included the naff plotline of our sleuthing Soldier and his copybook of fortuitous kid's drawings. That isn't going to somehow go away so I suspect we've more slow burn filler episodes to come and I expect we'll be following the British kids on their road trip to Paris in episode 4. Can't ... wait.

On season 2_episode 3: same as season 1, though, my wish was granted and I got to see the bright, daring, tenacious and lovely Mitsuki, the only one out there with a scientific and academic background that I like and respect.

Other than that, a little subpar season in comparison with season 1, with the same nonsense with Aneesha and her family and acquaintance, some lengthy dragging scenes and episodes with the British kids and an ending that is worse than the whole season.

Time to cancel the show. This time and this series, really.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 5.5
• Development: 7.5
• Realism: 6.5
• Entertainment: 6
• Acting: 6.5
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 7.5
• VFX: 8
• Music/score/sound: 7
• Depth: 7
• Logic: 2.5
• Flow: 6
• Drama/fantasy/sci-fi: 6.5
• Ending: 4.

CGI is very good. Very colourful. Too many coincidences? Oh yes. A sign of lazy writings. Yes! Dumb characters? Yes. Lazy writings? Definitely yes. Somebody watched I dependence Day? Must probably. Even the very unlikeable characters are a product of lazy writings. It's too easy for scriptwriters nowadays to make characters with no depth. They are just likeable or not. Anyway it's pure hokum and won't last the test of time. Why? Because it's too simplistic. Like all similar genre it's too unrealistic (from a human perspective. Aliens are alien do who knows) and to fill in the gaps we have coincidences. If only life was so simple.